EQUALITY GETS A NUMBER: HALF THE SKY, ONE-THIRD GROUND

The women’s reservation bill is a hard-fought bargain wrangled over generations. What remains to be seen is when, how and for how long

- SANTWANA BHATTACHARYA

IT seems to be a time for the general architecture of things to change. Or not. Three weeks ago, China gave its routine haircut to India’s map. But nobody reads Mandarin anyway, so we shrugged and said the shape of the country was non-negotiable, of course. But the name of the country, well, that was destined to go through some hectic negotiations with history—strictly internally—before apparently making peace with itself. Then the G20 stopped over in downtown Delhi and became G21. This time, we hugged. If anyone found the global bonhomie too diabetic, medicine came via instant delivery—India and Canada are cutting out the sugar as these words get put on paper.

Then parliament moved from a circle to a hexagon. The older one has been museumised, so to say, with a new name that recalls its role as the sacred site that birthed the Constitution. And the new one started life by making an architectural modification on that document itself. The Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Eighth Amendment) Bill, 2023—which mandates that one-third of the total seats in Parliament and all of India’s state assemblies will be reserved for women—may prove the most tectonic shift of the whole lot. If you’re cynical, you could add: “Or not… not yet, at least.”